The Fu Clan weren’t strangers to losing pursuers. They were famous for their assassination techniques, so they had many methods of tracking down their quarry. The obvious target was a decoy, the Beetle already melted into a puddle of liquid. Their gazes immediately transferred to the two dozen insects that had been released from the Beetle. Some of them chose to take on more of the Chong Clan elders and adding two more to the search. Five of the Fu Clan quickly killing and isolating the insects. At that moment something seemed to change and the insects rapidly started to scatter. A Fu Clan member made a quick decision, yelling out to the many spectators.

“Anyone who catches one of those big insects will be rewarded handsomely by the Fu Clan.”

An enterprising member of the crowd stepped forward, “How handsomely?”

“Quickly name your price, just hurry up and catch them!”

“Three Pain Burner pills per insect!”

The Fu Clan grit their teeth before one of them called out, “Agreed! Now hurry up, don’t let them escape!”

The crowd gasped, the reward truly was a handsome one! Pain Burner Pills were a well known speciality of the Fu Clan. They never sold them to the public so they could only be earned through favors or by defeating one of them. The pills would transform the pain from injuries into a stimulant. Instead of being slowed down by your injuries, these pills would make each cut or bruise into an energy booster. It didn’t stop a person from being injured, and they would be killed just as easily as any other person. On the other hand, it could turn a person into a berserker for their final moments in life or rapidly turn the tables for a decisive battle. After being heavily wounded you could take a Pain Burner Pill and instead of being at a disadvantage from your wounds you’d find your strength boosted. In the ideal situation that boost would turn the tide and you’d defeat your enemy. On the other hand, you can at least trade your life without pain to bring your enemy down with you.

Many in the crowd sprang into action. Small groups would form, three cultivators teaming up to take down the large centipedes. Others chose the fast and agile dragonflies, using various methods to wrangle them down to the ground or slice off their wings. The most troublesome were the Chameleon Mantids. The Fu Clan targeted them specifically. They could change colors and move quickly, even releasing wings and flying to avoid pursuit. After a few minutes the Chong Clan injured a pair of the Fu Clan cultivators and the Fu Clan stopped chasing the insects.

Suddenly outnumbered, the Chong Clan chose to escape. In their opinion they’d bought a few minutes of time for Lang Sheng. It would have to be enough. Glaring at their eternal foe, they released a final swarm of poisonous insects. A large cloud of gnats flew out, each of them seeming to instantly combust. Their bodies bursting into a deadly smoke as they flittered out at random. It was quite similar to Sage’s Thorn Cloud Hornets, but seemed far more deadly.

With the Chong Clan gone, the Fu Clan was free to act as they wished. With the frantic combat over, one of the Fu Clan members growled angrily and threw a small ball into the air. The ball suddenly magnified in size, showing itself to be covered in sharp spikes and attached to a thin chain. It continued to grow larger and larger until the metal ball was the size of a house and the chain links were two inches wide. The Fu Clan member pulled hard on the chain and the metal ball accelerated on its descent, falling down from the sky like a meteor and crashing down against the center of that obnoxious formation.

As if it was just waiting to be attacked, the formation suddenly changed. The hallucinogenic gas and rapidly alternating lights suddenly shut off. All of the energy the formation had been emitting was directed to the center of the formation. Some of the more experienced people in the crowd along with half of the Fu Clan dove to the ground. That huge formation plate suddenly exploded into a huge fireball, releasing metal shrapnel in every direction. The Fu Clan member with the huge spiked ball was cut in a half dozen places, a huge shard of metal like a dagger lodged in his gut. At the same time his weapon was slowed for an instant by the explosion before it slammed to the ground, turning the huge Formation Plate into a crater.

There was some cries of agony from the crowd. Half of the Fu Clan started to treat the other half’s injuries. An hour later everything seemed to be sorted and they regretfully took custody of the giant insects and passed over their precious pills for them. Quite ruthlessly they slaughtered the bugs and sorted through their bodies, looking for which one Lang Sheng was hiding in. The Fu Clan member that had smashed the formation finally took back his weapon after being healed. He had to cycle his Qi through it to activate its magical ability to shrink. It wasn’t a new idea, but uncommon because it was very expensive gathering materials to craft weapons of such immense size. As the others were busy checking the insects, one of them turned towards the crater on the ground and let out a loud yell, “It was a trick! Look there, under the Formation Plate!”

The insects were left where they were, five of them still hadn’t been exchanged for Pills by the crowd and the people holding them suddenly grew angry. The Fu Clan ignore them, the dozen masked faces staring into the crater and noticing a trio of tunnels heading straight downwards. They immediately knew they were duped.

“Hey, what about our Pills! Don’t you break your word, Fu Clan!”

The man that yelled out impatiently at them suddenly felt a coldness and then his head tumbled off his shoulders. The Fu Clan quickly tossed small pill bottles at the remaining insects and dove into the crater. Some of them dove into the holes which they found further branched again twenty feet further down. Others cut their own arms and combined the blood into a strange iron bowl. Tossing in random body parts from different demonic beasts and starting to chant in unison. Then, they added some of the blood from when Lang Sheng’s leg had been severed, they had collected it from the ground and already had a vial of it.

Above the iron bowl the blood coalesced into a bunch of ghostly spirits. Four blood red spirits surrounded a single white spirit. They looked only vaguely like humanoids, more like ghosts from campfire stories. Faces with empty eye sockets, gaping mouths, and dissolving to mist from the waist down. Apparitions with terrified faces and grasping hands. The red ones quickly advanced on the white one and clamped their hands down on its body. After a few minutes the white spirit was subdued, bound up with glowing black chains. The red spirits carried the white one, and it seemed to draw them in a certain direction like a compass.

Six of the Fu Clan members were following the tunnels underground, the other six stood up and followed rapidly after the strange group of spirits. Some of the people in the crowd started to whisper among themselves, discussing the strange and unusual methods of a clan of Assassins.

It wasn’t much longer before loud rumbling sounded out from the ground. Huge swathes of the landscape were suddenly overturned and huge black worms were tossed into the air and sliced into hundreds of thin discs. One of them spit out the body of a man with one leg before it was sliced apart. That man could only lift himself to a seated position and stare at the Fu Clan. Poisonous spores flew out in all directions and then thick roots sprung up around him and encircled him, combining together into the trunk of a huge tree. The tree was sliced down with one swipe of that huge scythe, pulled apart by a set of giant hands made out of shadows. A dozen tiny hornet nests he threw out were met in mid-air by smoke bombs, dissolving the hornets inside them.

Lang Sheng started to laugh hysterically, silenced a few moments later as the tip of a spear burst forth from his throat. The shaft of the spear originated from his own shadow behind him, stabbing forth from the ground and quickly taking his life. Lang Sheng’s body fell lifelessly to the ground. The white spirit that had led them there instantly disappeared. One of the Fu Clan members checked the body, picking up a Storage Ring and Beast Bag before stowing the body completely within their own ring. A one armed man stepped out from behind a tree and bowed to the others, “Fu Zedong thanks the Elders for getting rid of a future problem.”